Scientists have discovered a reservoir of water that is three times larger than the volume of all the oceans below the Earth’s surface, according to an international study. Water was found between the transition zone of the Earth’s upper and lower mantle.
The research team analyzed the speed diamond formed 660 meters below the earth’s surface using techniques including Raman spectroscopy and FTIR spectrometry, ANI reported.
The study confirmed something that had long been only a theory, namely that ocean water accompanies subducting plates and thus enters the transition zone. This means that the water cycle of our planet includes the interior of the Earth.
“These mineral transformations greatly hinder the movement of rock in the mantle,” explains prof. Frank Brenker of the Institute for Geosciences at Goethe University Frankfurt.
For example, mantle plumes—rising columns of hot rock from the deep mantle—sometimes stop just below the transition zone. The movement of mass in the opposite direction also stops.
Brenker says, “Subducting plates often have trouble breaking through the entire transition zone. So there’s a whole graveyard of such plates in this zone beneath Europe.”
Until now, however, it was not known what the long-term effects of “sucking” material into the transition zone are on its geochemical composition and whether there is a greater amount of water there.
Brenker explains: “Subducting plates also transport deep-sea sediments into the Earth’s interior. These sediments can hold large amounts of water and CO2. But until now, it was not clear how much enters the transition zone in a more stable form.